Morphologies Masterclasses online with Comma Press
Sarah-Clare Conlon, Literature Editor
Ancoats-based North England Small Press Of The Year winners Comma Press are halfway through their Morphologies Masterclass programme, livestreaming talks by contemporary authors on the work of classic short story writers. So far, we’ve heard from the likes of Man Booker-nominated Alison MacLeod on the work of Katherine Mansfield, Jane Rogers on Dostoyevsky and David Constantine on DH Lawrence. For more online adventures, watch Salford-born David Constantine – whose most recent short story collection, The Dressing-Up Box, comes out in paperback on 25 June.
Comma invites you to join them on their Facebook page as a contemporary short story writer talks about the work of one classic counterpart of their choice
Back to the Morphologies Masterclasses, and every fortnight (7pm on Tuesdays), Comma invites you to join them on their Facebook page as a contemporary short story writer talks about the work of one classic counterpart of their choice – how they were influenced by and learned from them, and what you can learn, in turn, from them both. Broadcasts will include writing prompts, and the final episode, Frank Cottrell-Boyce on Anton Chekhov, on Tuesday 30 June, will be followed by a Twitter Q&A.
Before then, Sean O’Brien – poet, playwright, critic, novelist, short-fiction writer, professor of creative writing at Newcastle University and a Fellow of the UK’s Royal Society of Literature – talks about Edgar Allan Poe on Tuesday 2 June, while award-winning and acclaimed author Stuart Evers delves into the words of Sherwood Anderson, on Tuesday 16 June.
The aim of the Morphologies Masterclass series, we’re told, is to engage those who are interested in working with the short story in the work of its masters, and to help to improve their own practice accessibly during the current lockdown. The masterclasses were originally delivered around the publication of the Morphologies anthology of 15 leading contemporary practitioners offering structural appreciations of past masters of the form as well as their own perspectives on what the short story does so well. During this programme, the eBook version of Morphologies will be discounted by half price to just £2.50, so you can be a proper swot and read each author’s essay ahead of their class.
More online entertainment is being provided by the Northern Fiction Alliance co-founders courtesy series two of their podcast, which just launched. Head on over to the Comma Press website for details.
